Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, has continued his public tirade against Rafa Benitez by levelling a series of astonishing accusations at the Madrid boss. Mourinho signalled, at the end of their title-winning 2015 season, that Chelsea’s extravagant spending was over and that a new era of “nuclear level” mind-games would begin. Mourinho has been good to his word, taking the “banter” to a whole new level as he questioned whether the Benitezes were involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann; “There are no mind games here. I do not care about him. I’m just asking a simple question. Where was Rafael Benitez on the night Madeleine McCann disappeared? That’s all. Did the police even question him? What about his wife?”

Mourinho v Benitez(‘s wife)

Jeff Stelling was typically calm and measured when breaking the story on Sky Sports News; “If the Mourinho v Benitez feud is World War II, then Jose Mourinho just dropped a bomb on Hiroshima.” Mourinho continued, answering the questions no one but himself was asking; “And another thing, where was he during 9/11 and the Steven Gerrard Slip? Is he in fact, the Devil reincarnate? Or worse, is he the Spanish David Moyes? It may be too soon to say but that won’t stop me.”

Speaking to FM Football News, Benitez said he would not respond directly to Mourinho, insisting he would be the bigger man: “I will not speak about this. Some men do their talking off the pitch while other men prefer to let their wife do the talking. Each to his own, I say.”

For the past few weeks, Mourinho, Benitez and for some reason Benitez’s wife, have been involved in a feud that was always likely to end in controversy. Mourinho called Benitez fat and his wife lazy while Mrs. Benitez said her husband “always has to clean up Jose’s mess”. Mourinho denied that he was throwing random accusations at Benetiz in the hope that one would get under his skin, saying:

“Now, before the media blows this all out of proportion, I want to set the record straight. I’m not saying that Rafa Benitez used a voodoo doll to make Steven Gerrard slip and hand the title to Chelsea. Even though Rafa is a known practitioner of the dark arts so his involvement is a natural conclusion I’m not saying any of this is true, just asking the question.”

Mourinho v Benitez

Benitez responded to the David Moyes jube directly: “You can call me fat, a paedo and a rapist. You can call my wife a bitch if you like. But no one calls me ‘Real Madrid’s David Moyes’. That’s the final straw.” David Moyes also felt Mourinho comments were over-the-top. “I think Jose’s comments are a bit much,” he said. “There’s no sense in comparing Rafa to me. Give the man a chance for fuck’s sake.”